This project aims to investigate local decarbonization initiatives through the lens of 'governance experiments'. These are purposeful interventions designed to address climate change and decarbonization imperatives in municipalities, with the intention to innovate and learn from best practices. Despite the implementation of many carbon governance experiments across Canada in response to municipal climate action mandates, there is a lack of systematic research on how different governance strategies facilitate transitions to net-zero communities. Local actors in Canada are engaging in initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, taking the form of institutional experiments (e.g., multi-stakeholder partnerships, innovative collaborative platforms, new funding arrangements) and intervention experiments (behavior-changing policies and practices). The living lab model presents an opportunity to design, test and evaluate these governance experiments, both as a novel institutional platform and as a testing ground for innovative interventions.